Today we’d like to introduce you to Keneth Leoncito.
Hi Keneth, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My love of drawing probably started back when I was a little kid in Jakarta, Indonesia. Granted I was literally like 2 or 3 years old and truly don’t remember much from that time, what I did remember was my parents gave me printouts of Disney characters to colour and draw on. Even though it’s hardly novel, I am glad that I get to return to my baby artist origins by designing characters for Disney Animation today.
I grew up in a really traditional Filipino household, and along with that came plenty of cultural expectations, great food, and of course, our folklore, superstitions, and beliefs which hold a lot of space in my mind as a creative. My parents immigrated from Indonesia to Canada when I was four, and set me up for great success to become a doctor or an engineer, but the appeal of magical girl anime and Saturday morning cartoons were too strong to deny.
Even though I initially went to university to study life sciences, I always found myself drawing and creating things in the margins of my notes, so I decided to take a chance and to switch to animation with a little portfolio and a dream. After studying animation at Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada, I found out what I was good at, what I wanted to do and rediscovered my love of art and design. I realized that art can be a medium whereby I can share my worldview and folklore with others, and hopefully through movies and media to impact and inspire people the same way I was inspired when I was younger.
I spent a lot of time in college creating characters that featured Filipino folklore and even created a short film centered around a ghost story about a famous Filipino painter called Portrait of a Lady (2019) which showed and won a few awards in festivals.
After graduating I made it a focus to pursue design for feature films, first starting off as a set designer and illustrator at Netflix Animation, to now as a character designer and visual development artist at Walt Disney Animation Studios. When I am not producing art at work, I spend my time developing my own stories and legends for TTRPG campaigns with my friends.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I would say my career has had its ups and downs but pursuing art is very much like an adventure that just needs to be had, side quests and all.
Taking a personal creative act and turning it into a commodifiable commercial skill is something that I think every artist probably has to process. In the world of feature films, every artist is incredible and expected to produce work at a fairly high level so I can often find myself doubting what I can and can’t do. I have found that showing yourself compassion as you create, reaching out for help, surrounding yourself with good friends and a little bit of elbow grease has been the best way to push your way through those bumps and in the road.
Other challenges included how much traveling I have had to do to get to where I am today. Being a Canadian in the US comes with it its own problems and challenges. Overall I do think it’s still tough finding the middle ground on wanting to make things and live off of that.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a visual development artist for animation which includes creating concept art and illustrations to environments and characters.
In the past, I’ve worked as a set designer/ illustrator for the stop-motion Netflix film, Wendell and Wild by Henry Selick. My job there was to design 2d assets like props, paintings, furniture, landscapes, buildings, and interiors that would later be sent to fabricators to be made into miniature stages and sets for stop-motion filming. During my time on that show, I think I can confidently say I created artwork to inspire nearly 70% of all of the sets seen on screen. This was my first full-time gig after graduating from art school and was full of many challenges, problem-solving, and fun. It’s something I am still really proud of.
Right now, I work as a Character designer at Walt Disney Animation Studios. My current duties include exploring the look and designing various characters and their costumes for a variety of different shows and projects there. Since a lot of the things I’ve worked on there have yet to be released I can’t say much but look forward to seeing my work in the future. Of those soon to be released is Disney’s 100-year anniversary film, Wish, which comes out on November 22, 2023.
What does success mean to you?
There are so many parameters to what really defines what success is or could be but for me, it means being able to do something that matches with your worldview/philosophy or life purpose (are you making work that saves lives, or are you making work that serves your local community or are you making work that changes minds?) and being proud of doing it.
I think I’m still on my way of getting to that place where I can say I’m fulfilling my life’s purpose but I think I’m getting just a little closer every day and I’m happy with where I am in getting there.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kenesu.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ke.ne.su/?hl=en
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenesu/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/kenesu
Image Credits
All images are my own. ©Keneth Leoncito
